


Final Crisis, Or Last Hope

by Merfilly



Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-31
Updated: 2007-12-31
Packaged: 2017-12-08 02:53:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/756158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One More Time Around....</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I think this was one more attempt I'd begun to use for a rebooted DCU 'verse

_There was a firm pressure along her wrists, one that abraded and cut. Her face was swollen, so much that one eye would barely open._

_Then there was the slow slide of warm liquid drops and rivulets sliding down her skin, the air cooling it where the shirt hung open._

`~`~`~`~`

Her scream was a silent one, lost into the feather down of her comforter as she clutched it higher around her. She hadn't had that dream in ages, she told herself, even as her eyes darted to her own wrists to look for the tell-tale marks. 

They were still gone, erased in the Lazarus Pit. The one Ted had put her in, at Barbara's command.

She wouldn't be here now, if it weren't for the two of them. Wouldn't be helming the new League in a prayerful hope of truly making a difference.

She knew J'onn had done all he could to take Checkmate down over Ted's murder, but right now, facing the light of a new day far too early, she couldn't help but feel like it might not have been enough. Learning just who Ted had gone to looking for help, before his murder, had made Dinah hurt in her soul, and she could now see just why Barbara had felt the need to turn outward even more with her operations. Barbara felt the sting of guilt there as much as Bruce did.

Dinah rose, pacing, wondering just why that dream had come to mind, why she felt this push now to do something in the memory of the man who had erased the marks of that long-gone torture.

When she realized it wasn't so much the memory, but the man himself, she grew even more confused for all of ten seconds...and then she was at her computer, searching for information of strange happenings in the world.

After all, she hadn't grown up with Dr. Fate as an 'uncle' without being able to recognize a portent.

`~`~`~`~`

_He was trapped inside a car and it was moving but not fast enough. It was never fast enough. He'd never get there..._

_And then he was, but it was too late. Always too late. All he could do was stare at the rivers of blood, at the thing that had once been his father and was now nothing more than a cooling corpse. He started to fall, and was caught in black waves of armor and cloth._

`~`~`~`~`

The dream had been too vivid to ignore, propelling Tim from his prescribed four hour sleep after only two of them. He turned the computer on to get an idea of whether Batman and Robin had made an impact, logging into one of the various secured chats just to see who was awake.

A frown crossed his face to see the user name EbonPreyBird in the room. A glance at the clock confirmed it was not her usual hours, and he private messaged her to see if something was going on that he could help with.

::EPB, what are you doing awake? Long day with the suits?::

::No, got woke up rudely, SarcasticOne.::

::Me too.:: He wouldn't admit that to just anyone, but Dinah was different. Having run with her on the Birds for a little while, and seeing just how hard she tried...it made a difference. Then there was that possibility of being related, the one neither of them denied but neither had ever confirmed. 

::I hate the drawbacks of being who we are, SO.::

::Work related? Mine was...personal.::

There was a long pause before she replied to him, and he knew if she were there he'd be swept up in her arms. That wouldn't have been so bad; she tended to give these hugs that left a person reeling with feeling important, if only for a few minutes.

::Mine was too, even if it did happen because I got sloppy.::

Sloppy. Tim had gotten sloppy too, let his dad find out, started everything that led to Steph's death. He was glad this wasn't voice chat as his breathing was a shade out of rhythm, something he consciously corrected in the next moment.

::Mine too.::

Another long pause and he took in the other people in the chat, noting she was talking to them all in the open forum. 

Nightmares. All in the last night. All turning their thoughts to the ones lost during the insanity of the most recent Crisis, its aftermath, or its build-up.

::I don't think it's a coincidence, SO...I think we're about to be slammed with something new.::

Tim took in the comments about Elongated Man, Booster Gold, Terra, Pantha, and could not disagree with her assessment. 

::EPB, I want to be in the loop from the beginning on this one.::

::That's if we can figure out what this is, fast enough, SO. Right now, I just know something's coming.::

`~`~`~`~`

All the heroes Dinah spoke to had been close to people lost. All of them were on alert, and growing tense as the days went by. Some people, she thought privately, had not wanted to speak to her, not until they heard others were in their boat too.

Even Bruce mentioned in passing that he was plagued by memories of Stephanie.

Dinah managed to refrain from slapping him for the reminder that if Bruce had been a little less an asshole, they might not have lost the girl, and just thanked him, telling him to keep her informed if the dreams changed.

`~`~`~`~`

Vandal Savage had a dream. A dream of perfect immortality. All he had to do to attain it was stop the heroes from discovering the nexus, a portal that would transform their worlds and erase the status quo.

When he found his old partner, Gorilla Grodd, and his occasional ally, Lex Luthor there at the site of the forming nexus, he began to think this was far beyond even the scope the other Luthor's ambitions.

He didn't care, so long as the JSA was wiped from existence, and his immortality perfected.

`~`~`~`~`

_He ran, always ran, becoming nothing more than atoms, still running, still reaching into the device and changing its intent. Where many worlds had been, there would be one._

_It had to be that way, so most could survive. All the pieces, all the ones who existed throughout the worlds, pressed into one. Some of the unique ones would remain...some would be lost. He couldn't help that, wished he could...but for the sake of most, a few had to die. Not die...unexist. Like he would, except he had always been and would always be. He was Barry Allen. He was the Flash. He was the Speed Force._

_Hal had tried to undo the one world into many again, with anguish for so many people. Then another, one who had escaped the merger of all worlds, sought to make one world...but cast from the phantoms of those long lost worlds._

_The result was flawed. It did not work. Too many people were too far separated from the ones they belonged to._

_Barry Allen, long since nothing but atoms, ran harder to fix what had been broken._

`~`~`~`~`

Around the world, four people came awake, gasping for breath. One beneath the waves, one meditating high in Nepal, another on an isolated air base, and the fourth trying to catch a little sleep in her office all knew the moment was close. 

They had to go, had to be there when it happened.

Barry was going to come home, and everything would be all right at long last.

`~`~`~`~`

It was Metropolis all over again. A growing maw of energy, threatening to rewrite the world, the universe, had formed on Earth. Plasticman's quick quip that Earth had to be the belly button of the universe was not laughed at.

He had to have a point, as often as these things centered here.

The Central Rogues, the Arkham Alliance, the League of Assassins...these and more were ready to defend the energy that promised them a world free of their thorns. The heroes never even thought about backing down, as it was Superman who led the charge, and the League who chose to take the battle to their enemies, instead of waiting this time.

`~`~`~`~`

The Anti-Monitor appeared first, flickering into reality just before Extant, before a sinister-looking Parallax, before the misguided Alexander Luthor.

Waverider and Harbinger and a host of other timestream guardians could be seen, as reality started to waver among the stars. Red skies battled the image of many worlds in most of the sky, but reality seemed to be in the midst of being erased and redrawn in another part.

The Crisis Wars, as they would be called by those few beings who could remember them after the fact, became a titanic struggle between the Justice League and the ones who had brought each Crisis into existence. Those who had never been League members remained with their own teams, handling the panic and chaos as villainy and fear ran rampant worldwide. Not a few prayers were said that the chaos would die away, and hopefully take the memory with it.

Those prayers, like many others, were answered when Barry Allen arrived and drove all the energy he had raced to stop back into the Anti-Monitor himself, causing a ripple in time and space in every permutation of every universe still in existence, even those fractured ones lost in Hypertime and Pocket Dimensions.

`~`~`~`~`

"...pretty good back there. I was thinking..." The Scarlet Speedster paused, scratching his head.

"What, Flash?" The Mightiest Amazon looked at her teammate, noting how distracted he seemed.

"Maybe we should form a team...a League...for Justice," the speedster continued, getting a dubious look from the Amazing Atlantean, a brief nod from the Emerald Knight, and an appraising one from the Man from Mars.

Barry Allen, Flash for his generation, vowed to make sure the history ahead of them did not fall from the ideals of the long gone Justice Society of America. He did not want it to ever be like those dim memories he felt he had lived in some other life. The heroes lost in all those wrong worlds that had come before would get their chances to be what they should, without the threat of red skies, or many Earths, or non-existence.

This time, when Barry had hit the reset button, the Source Wall had gotten a new member. Without the Anti-Monitor to break the dimensional walls, with the heroes of Earth sifted into their proper eras, maybe history would unfold as a pageantry of sapient life's more usual trials, instead of cosmic battles.


	2. On Beginnings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A prologue to the reboot-verse

There have been heroes and legends since the dawning of time. Primitive man told tales of strong hunters, early civilizations spoke of mighty kings and heroes, and later ones had men who contested the gods themselves.

Warriors, explorers, leaders...all of them inspired mankind.

The modern age spread their tales faster. The press was more than pleased to feature stories on the man with the green energy, the scarlet blur, the scandalously clad beauty who fought like a demon alongside the boxer who had nine lives.

War came. The heroes with true powers were left to defend the homeland, barred from the distant shores by an evil man with a powerful icon.

And in time, they were vilified by a country seeking enemies at home because they were not allowed to go abroad and fight the menace they imagined in another way of thinking. The bright and flashy Society that had given so much faded into obscurity, taking the spirit of America with them into hiding.

No one wrote headlines when they chose to reband and fight the end of the world, locking themselves in endless combat against the gods and destiny itself.

The world grew more, and heroes were merely men in the right places at the right time again. No powers emerged, no one flew, no one ran faster than sound...and the heroes were once again relegated to places of myth and legend.

Until the day a man in red, blue, and yellow saved a city, and humanity once again dared dream that their problems could have answers beyond themselves.


End file.
